The Aztec Code

by Stephen Cole

  Jonah nodded, looked at Honor. ‘You’re putting a hell of a lot into this, aren’t you?’

  ‘We are merely doing what is necessary,’ she said.

  ‘Like selling the very latest biological weapons to the likes of Kabacra?’

  ‘He’s not getting what he thinks he’s getting,’ said Traynor smugly.

  ‘Or like giving Ramez one last, perfect year as you fatten him up for sacrifice?’

  Traynor shrugged. ‘The Aztecs knew that the gods gave things to human beings only if they were nourished by human beings in turn.’

  ‘You’re sick, all of you!’ Tye shouted suddenly. ‘Nothing’s gonna happen if you kill Ramez! How’s his blood supposed to bring anything back to life?’

  ‘That’s enough, take her out of here,’ snapped Honor, and two heavy types moved from the doors to obey. ‘The one-eyed boy, too. I think we have passed beyond the need to make threats against them …’ She looked up at Jonah, and he caught a hunger in her black eyes that made him want to shudder. ‘Perhaps it is time we started talking business?’

  ‘Jonah, we’ve got to stop them doing this!’ Tye shouted, struggling as the two men tried to bundle her out of the room after the unresisting Patch. ‘Traynor believes everything he’s told you – but she doesn’t!’

  He turned to her anxiously. ‘What?’

  ‘She doesn’t believe like he does!’ Tye insisted. Then she was gone, the dark, mirrored glass of the door swung back into place, and Jonah was left looking at the distorted reflection of himself, his face livid with bruising, half lost in shadow.

  Honor smiled at Jonah. She seemed entirely unruffled. ‘I’m glad not all Coldhardt’s operatives are so … hysterical.’

  Give me time, he thought darkly, alone now before the Council of Thirteen Heavens – which was fast becoming his private hell.

  Feeling wretched and hollow inside, Tye let herself be led out into the comparative normality of Traynor’s opulent house. But the atmosphere of oppressive gloom lingered.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Tye,’ Patch assured her, as he was dragged off to some downstairs room while she was marched upstairs. ‘We’re better off out of there. Jonah will sort things. You’ll see!’

  ‘I know,’ Tye called back loyally. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see you soon.’ But inside she felt a lot less certain, both of seeing Patch and of Jonah’s chances of saving any of them.

  She just didn’t know what to make of this Sixth Sun set-up. Traynor was clearly some kind of psychopath – as clever as he was violent. So how come he had lost the plot so badly? She had heard endless people claim that they had communed with spirits – back in Haiti where she’d grown up, the voodoo priests reckoned they did so all the time. How much was down to imagination and how much came from genuine spiritual union had never been clear to her, but Traynor was a true believer all right; Tye had seen that mad glint in his eyes.

  Honor Albrecht, on the other hand … Tye’s instincts told her that the woman’s beliefs were entirely different, that when she’d chipped into Traynor’s story she’d only been going through the motions. There was no passion when she spoke, no sense of conviction. And for the high priestess of a secret society like this, even allowing for her sense of English cool, that seemed kind of odd.

  Marched up to the landing, Tye waited wearily in red-mouth’s grip while yellow-mouth unlocked the same room she’d been held in before. But then her heart jumped as she heard movement inside.

  ‘Keep back from the door,’ yellow-mouth called through the heavy wood, ‘and you’ll get a nice surprise.’

  Tye heard feet retreating, meekly. Yellow-mouth opened the door and she was shoved roughly inside, fell forwards on to the wooden floor, gasped with pain as the wound in her side burned hot – and felt a shadow fall over her. She recoiled and rolled over, started to scramble up –

  ‘Tye?’

  She stared up in disbelief. It was Ramez. He crouched down beside her, and she could see how red his eyes were. Then he grabbed her and held her close.

  Tye could feel him trembling. ‘Are you OK? Where’d you come from?’

  ‘My bodyguard drove me here. But they never said …’ He pressed his face up against her neck. ‘I thought they’d killed you.’

  ‘I got away. I tried to get help for you.’ She stroked the back of his neck. ‘But Sixth Sun found me again, took me back.’

  ‘You can’t escape them,’ he murmured. ‘You just gotta accept that.’

  She pulled away from his grip and looked into his glistening eyes. ‘The way you have?’

  ‘I used to hope against hope …’ His fingers were digging into her arms now, but she barely felt it. ‘Used to think that maybe there was a way out.’ He pressed his lips against hers in a clumsy kiss. ‘There’s nothing. Tonight they’re bringing me my last supper, and that’s it.’

  ‘Last supper?’ she echoed, numbly.

  ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m gonna die, sugar-girl.’ He kissed her again, rough, hard. His saliva was thick, his mouth tasted sour. She stayed rigid in his arms. ‘I’m gonna have my heart cut out with a rock. They’re gonna kill me. Sweet Jesus Christ, they’re gonna kill me.’ His teeth scraped into her lip, she tasted the blood and felt sick. ‘Tye, will you hold me?’ His voice was all choked up, he wiped his nose on her cheek. ‘C’mon, just hold me.’

  ‘We’re going to get out,’ she whispered, trying to pull away from his kisses. ‘Jonah’s here, and Patch, and we’re – we’re not giving up, Ramez.’

  ‘We.’ Suddenly he pushed her away, sneering. ‘You and your crummy little band of super-crooks, huh?’

  She stared at him, hurt balling in her chest. ‘Me and my friends.’

  ‘You ran out on me before to get back to them. And what good were they, huh?’ He pushed her again, and she fell back awkwardly on her ass. ‘What could they do? Jack. Nothing.’

  Tye wiped the blood from her lip. ‘It’s not over yet.’

  ‘Everything’s over!’ Ramez grabbed hold of her shoulders.

  ‘Get off me,’ Tye warned him.

  ‘You just don’t see it, do you? We’re dead – both of us.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘’S’true!’ he spat in her face. ‘You just get to watch me go first.’

  For a moment, Tye was thirteen again, hiding in the shadows as the dealers closed on Ramez.

  One of them took out a gun, pointed it so casually, fired. She saw the blood spatter the floor, so much blood, heard Ramez scream, loud and high, a baby wail. Heard sirens, footsteps running. Opened her eyes, saw cops with their arms round Ramez, medics with a stretcher. Ramez never stopped screaming for the money he’d lost, begging someone to bring it back. He couldn’t know what had happened to Tye, didn’t seem to give a damn. She was shut out, left behind, forgotten in the dark.

  ‘And what do you care, huh?’ He started to shake her by the shoulders. ‘I said, what do you care?’

  She brought up both arms to break his grip. Then she twisted his left wrist round behind his back, ready to break that too. He gasped with pain.

  ‘You want to know what I care?’ she hissed. ‘You need to even ask that question?’ She threw him forwards. He fell heavily against the leather sofa, twisted round on his knees, and looked up at her. He was clutching his wrist, panting for breath. Then his mouth twisted. ‘Help me.’ He held out his arms to her, eyes imploring. ‘I’m so scared. Oh God, I’m so, so scared, sugar-girl.’

  Tye watched him there on his knees, snivelling, reaching out to her.

  ‘So am I,’ she said. Slowly, stiffly, she joined him on her knees, held him to her, shushed him gently as he shook and sobbed like a little kid in her arms. ‘God knows, so am I.’

  ‘So what’s with the earth shaking the sun from the sky stuff?’ Jonah asked Traynor, still trying to play it casual but keen to get as much info as he could. ‘How d’you read that part of the prophecy?’

  ‘Simple. The Aztec architects who sealed the temple and secreted it
underground built in an extraordinary mechanism.’ Traynor paused impressively, though Honor seemed less enthralled. ‘The age of the Fifth Sun was supposed to end with an earthquake, and the priest-architects planned that the temple would rise up from the deadlands at that time. Therefore the mechanism is designed to respond only to powerful tremors in the area.’ He laughed. ‘Isn’t that beautiful? Only an earthquake can make the temple rise!’

  ‘Beautiful,’ agreed Jonah. ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘The temple was rediscovered by accident,’ Honor explained impatiently. ‘Nuclear waste is often sealed and buried deep in the ground, all over the world – the Mexican mountains included. A surveyor stumbled upon the foundations of the temple, marked with Aztec runes –’

  ‘And the surveyor sold you the information,’ Jonah surmised.

  Honor’s eyes glinted. ‘Of course, he had to be persuaded to keep very quiet about his discovery.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll bet.’ Jonah nodded grimly. ‘So what are you going to do – come up with your own earthquake?’

  ‘That is exactly what we are going to do,’ Traynor agreed. ‘The eucalyptus truck contained industrial nuclear waste products ready for illegal dumping. Enough plutonium has been extracted from the waste to construct a small nuclear device secretly in my weapons labs. Soon we shall detonate it deep underground in the vicinity of the temple.’

  Horrified, Jonah stared at him. ‘You’ve made a nuclear bomb?’

  ‘A simple enough procedure,’ said Honor. ‘And now we’ve found the perfect place to set it off.’

  Jonah recalled the snatches of conversation Tye said she’d overheard on the penthouse balcony. ‘When you said you were close to finding the exact location with those geological surveys, you weren’t talking about the temple, were you? You were talking about where best to explode a bomb.’

  ‘It has taken some time to find the precise site among the many fissures and tunnels beneath the mountains,’ said Douglas gravely. ‘Too deep underground, and the tremors will not be sufficient to set off the temple mechanism. Too close to the surface, and we risk irradiating the area.’

  The old professor type piped up. ‘There is also the local water supply to consider, which, of course, cannot be polluted –’

  Honor got up from her chair. ‘Enough of this.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Jonah quickly, turning to Traynor. ‘We haven’t got on to Coatlicue feeding on the poison in men, yet. What’s all that –’

  ‘It is time we discussed how you will rid us of Coldhardt,’ said Honor. ‘We may have beaten him to the prize on this occasion, but no doubt he will go on attempting to involve himself in our affairs at any opportunity.’

  Jonah shrugged. ‘I can tell you how to bypass his defences.’

  Traynor looked smug and condescending. ‘Aren’t you forgetting we already got inside his New Mexico base when we abducted your friend?’

  ‘And dealt with you,’ added Xavier, his green eyes hard and unblinking.

  ‘No, I hadn’t forgotten,’ said Jonah evenly. ‘It’s one thing breaching an unfinished security system in one of his outposts. But I can tell you how to get inside his main base – the heart of the Coldhardt empire. I can tell you how to decrypt all his passwords and get at his secrets.’

  ‘I’ll deal with this matter personally, Michael.’ Honor gave Jonah her hungriest smile yet. ‘We clearly have much to discuss, Wish. You shall join me tonight.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Jonah found his smile was genuine, just at the thought of getting out of that place alive.

  Traynor didn’t look a hundred per cent about the idea. ‘Do you need assistance?’

  Her hair flapped round as she turned to him. ‘I believe I can manage, Michael,’ she said smoothly. ‘Thanks all the same.’

  ‘He’s not the pushover he looks,’ Xavier warned her.

  Traynor smiled. ‘Really?’

  Honor looked at Jonah. ‘I don’t think Wish will cause me any trouble.’ She took hold of his forearm and pressed her thumb against the flesh. At once he gasped, as a blinding pain tore through his shoulder up to his neck – she must have hit a nerve or a pressure point or something.

  ‘Point proved,’ he gasped, and she let go of him. His arm was bristling with pins and needles, but he refused to show any more pain in front of her.

  ‘Xavier will go with you,’ Traynor insisted. ‘I’m not about to allow one of Coldhardt’s operatives to meet with my high priestess unguarded, the night before our plans come to fruition.’

  Jonah stared at him. ‘This all kicks off tomorrow?’

  Traynor nodded slowly, picking up Coldhardt’s statuette. ‘Now, if there are no more matters arising, I declare this extraordinary meeting of the Council to be concluded. We shall meet again at eleven, to rehearse tomorrow’s ritual and to purify ourselves for the coming rebirth.’

  The excitement in the air was almost tangible. Jonah didn’t want to know what purifying entailed. He remembered the drawings Con had shown him of the Aztec lords spilling their own blood on to the land to please the gods, and shuddered.

  While the council members turned to each other, chattering excitedly in low voices, Honor was already up and heading for the door. She paused and looked back at Jonah, like he was a wayward dog she was calling to heel. Jonah threw a quick glance at Xavier, pleased to see him wearing the amulet round his neck again. ‘No hard feelings, I hope?’

  Xavier’s expression didn’t change. They might get a lot harder if you ever work out there’s a radio transmitter hidden in your amulet. If Motti’s bug was working correctly, then he and Con should have picked up every word back at their motel in Florissant, just a few miles away.

  What they could do about all this information with so little time left till kick-off was another matter.

  Xavier gave him a shove in the small of his back. Jonah meekly followed Honor from the council chamber, rubbing his numb arm and wondering what the hell he was going to do next.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Gotta hand it to the geek,’ said Motti, pulling off his headphones and turning to Con. ‘He’s got balls of steel. He did good in there.’

  ‘For what it was worth.’ Con was sprawled in an armchair with a Coke, staring at bits of paper scattered on the floor. He guessed she was still trying to work out hidden meanings in the pictograms. She hadn’t stopped for hours; languages were kind of her thing, Motti supposed, and she didn’t like being beaten on a problem. Shit, none of them did.

  But this time, winning through was looking less and less likely.

  ‘Can’t believe they’re ready to move out tomorrow.’ Motti shook his head. ‘We’re royally screwed.’

  ‘They have all the cards,’ Con agreed, not looking up from her work. ‘The sword, the location of the temple and the means to open it. And now they have Jonah as well as Patch and Tye.’

  ‘Looks like it’s just you and me, baby,’ Motti agreed. He gave a heavy sigh, checked the MP3 recorder was still getting down everything that Xavier’s amulet was receiving. Considering the radio mike was the size of a pinhead pressed into a crack in the jade, the sound quality was incredible. ‘Well, at least we can tell Coldhardt how things are. Maybe now he knows it’s no good, he’ll give up on this temple and concentrate on getting Patch, Tye and Jonah back safe.’

  Con snorted softly, turned a page. ‘That’s about as likely as an old Aztec goddess speaking in Traynor’s ear.’

  ‘C’mon, Jonah, speak into mine,’ Motti muttered, pressing one headphone pad back against his ear. He heard a dull, steady drone – a car engine. Jonah, this Honor chick and medallion man were in a car, on their way to her place. Motti listened on, but no one was speaking. He had an uneasy feeling building in his belly. Probably because he knew that it was partly down to him that the geek was now in this mess.

  Jonah had come to him and Con, begging them to help him persuade Coldhardt to let him go to Colorado. It had been Motti’s idea to wire up the amulet – and this had final
ly sold Coldhardt on the big gamble. The boss man knew time was tight, and since Jonah was willing, he had decided to risk the geek’s life smuggling the hidden mike into the heart of Sixth Sun’s sanctum, in the hope they’d hear something that could help them get ahead – maybe even the location to the temple. But it looked like Traynor and co were keeping that info to themselves, and meantime Jonah had been beaten up and Tye and Patch dragged off to God knew where…

  ‘So – radio mike. Great idea,’ murmured Motti. ‘All we know now is how much we still don’t know. Aside from the fact that Traynor is crazy and Jonah’s in big, big trouble.’

  Con shrugged. ‘It was a gamble. We may not have won but we’ve found out why Sixth Sun are doing this – and how.’

  Motti looked over at her. ‘Y’know, if Jonah gives us the address they’re going to, maybe we can spring him, or get the chick and force her to take us to the temple … Even trade her for Tye and Patch.’

  ‘Can we follow the signal from the radio mike?’ Con wondered. ‘Use it to track them to the temple?’

  ‘We don’t got the range,’ Motti told her. ‘Why’d you think we came way out here to listen in on ’em? In any case, by the time we’ve followed them to wherever the temple is, they’ll have emptied the whole goddamned place – well, so long as the sleeping goddess don’t wake up and have something to say about that.’ There was no reaction from Con, and Motti glowered at her. ‘Tell me if I’m boring you, OK?’

  ‘Wait. I think I might have something …’ Con held up the same old pictogram, the one that showed the heart thing hanging over the two boxes. ‘Coffers!’

  Motti pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted at the picture. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Maybe the boxes aren’t just boxes. Maybe this longer one is meant to be a coffer, yes?’

  ‘So what?’

  Con started rifling through her papers. ‘By combining words, the Aztecs changed their meaning, remember? If you take “heart” and “blood” and put them together, you get cacao, their bitter chocolate drink.’ She stabbed her finger at a point on the page and shoved it under his nose. ‘And according to this old lecture on their language, if you put the phrases “in a box” and “in a coffer” together, you create a new meaning – the word “secretly”.’